Portrait of a psychopath Blood Relation

November 20, 2005|MARY CAROLE MCCAULEY The Baltimore Sun

Eric Konigsberg HarperCollins $25.95 Often, psychopaths are forces of nature, possessed of prodigious drive and charm. "Blood Relation" draws an incisive portrait of one such man. Nebraska writer Eric Konigsberg discovered as an adult that he was related to Harold "Kayo" Konigsberg, a legendary Jewish Mafia hit man who admitted committing more than 20 murders, according to FBI documents. "Blood Relation" (which was excerpted in The New Yorker) traces what occurs after the younger Konigsberg visits his great-uncle in the prison where he is serving a life sentence, pieces together his story, and then tries to extricate himself from what was proving an increasingly uncomfortable, even dangerous, relationship. Eric Konigsberg's effort to track down his great-uncle's story was made more difficult by the secrecy of the FBI investigations he sought to publish, and by Kayo's habit of reflexive lying. To compensate, the author delves into sociology (the history of the Mafia in the United States, in particular why just one generation of Jews was heavily involved in organized crime and psychology, which seems to support the theory that Kayo was born bad). The story is reported meticulously, and Konigsberg's prose generally is clean and straightforward. What is troubling is the question of whether Kayo Konigsberg, now 75, fully understood that his nephew planned to publish his life story during all those daylong visits to Auburn Correctional Facility in New York spread out over a period of years. Evidence points both ways. On page 37, the author writes: "I explained the circumstances of the magazine assignment that had brought me to him." That certainly sounds straightforward and unambiguous. Elsewhere, Eric Konigsberg describes carrying mountains of notebooks into the visiting room. If everything was aboveboard from the beginning, why does Kayo fly into a rage and threaten Eric's life upon hearing this particular bit of news? Any journalist -- and here, Eric Konigsberg is acting in a journalistic capacity -- owes it to his subjects to be transparent about his publishing plans. Even when the subject is a monster.